Last week’s Best of Panama green coffee auction shattered numerous price records, including a total auction value of more than US$1.38 million and a weighted average price of $627.27 per pound.

None of the 50 coffees in the auction earned less than $200 per pound, and multiple coffees earned more than $4,500 per pound.

By comparison, the top-scoring coffee in the 2017 Best of Panama competition and auction earned $601 per pound, a number that set the specialty coffee world aghast at the time. For another point of comparison, the current “C market” price for arabica coffee is approximately $2.35 per pound.

In addition to breaking the Best of Panama auction’s total value and average price records, the 2024 auction also saw the highest per-pound price ever paid for a single lot. A consortium of buyers from Asia led by Tokyo’s Saza Coffee paid $4,542 per pound for a natural-process Gesha-variety coffee produced by Lamastus Family Estates.

The Saza-led group offered the winning bid for a washed-process Gesha from producer Adaura Coffee of $4,537 per pound. Combined, those two lots received more than 7,800 bids.

Produced by the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama, the Best of Panama competition and auction program launched in 1996. The organizers recently made headlines after discovering alleged “cheating” and taking a stance against “infused” coffees. The 2024 online auction was hosted by M-Cultivo.

“It makes me particularly proud to be part of this effort that the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama has put together to bring the best coffees of our country to the world,” SCAP Executive Secretary Ana Luisa Miranda said in an announcement from the group. “The auction has been another record breaking success, thanks to the hard work and dedication of our producers, to the knowledgeable group of people, national and international, who selected the 50 auctioned coffees, and to the buyers from all over the world.”